The helium arc discharge has been extensively used to produce carbon nanotubes also called buckytubes in macroscopic quantities. All experiments reported to date have shown that carbon nanotubes produced in inert gas arcs are invariably capped at the ends of the tubes The nanotube ends can be opened by a post oxidation treatment in an oyxgen atmposhere at high temperature. However, the tube ends become filled with carbonaceous debris. Thus, filling the open-ended tubes after post oxidation with other material has proven difficult. Another problem with carbon nanotubes sythesized in inert gas arcs is the formation of highly defective tubes containing amorphous carbon deposits on both the inside surface and outside surface of the tubes and the presence of discontinuous graphite sheets The nanotubes can be embedded in a background of amorphous carbon that glues the nanotubes together and makes their separation very difficult to near impossible. At present, there is a need to find a simple and effective method to synthesize high quality carbon nanotubes.
As the device dimensions for integrated circuits approach submicron scale, there is a need to synthesize and process materials with special composition and geometry at the nanoscale level for application both in electronics and optics It is anticipated that these capablities will launch a nanotechnology with applications that currently do not exist. For example, there is a need in the future flat panel area to fabricate surface electron emtters with over 300,000 emission sites in an area less than ten microns square. At best, the current technology can only reach one hundredth of the emission site-density needed.